Probe will go on, Republican says

Hoekstra undeterred by Justice objections to videotapes inquiry

WASHINGTON — The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee vowed Sunday to press ahead with the congressional investigation of the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes despite strenuous objections of the Justice Department.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan said Congress would call witnesses and demand documents in order to probe the CIA's decision to destroy videotapes of the interrogations of two suspected Al Qaeda operatives.

"We want to hold the [intelligence] community accountable for what's happened with these tapes," Hoekstra said. "I think we will issue subpoenas."

On Friday, the Justice Department said it would not cooperate with any congressional investigation, contending that giving lawmakers information could subject the inquiry to political pressures. Immediately after that announcement, Hoekstra and the committee chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), said they were "stunned" that the Justice Department was trying to block the investigation.

The two lawmakers have requested all of the CIA's records related to the creation and destruction of the tapes.

On "Fox News Sunday," Hoekstra said he believed his committee would defy the Justice Department's demand that Congress halt its inquiry. Although Hoekstra said it was likely the panel would issue subpoenas to force testimony and documents, members have not decided whether to offer immunity to potential witnesses.

Rep. Jane Harman of California, the intelligence panel's top Democrat from 2003 to 2006, said on the Fox program that she had warned the CIA in 2003 not to destroy the tapes.

"It smells like the cover-up of the cover-up," she said.

Harman, who is no longer on the intelligence committee, said that Congress and the Justice Department had conducted parallel inquires before.

Hoekstra was extremely critical of the intelligence community and its leaders, calling them arrogant, political and incompetent.

"They've clearly demonstrated through the tapes case that they don't believe that they are accountable to Congress," he said. "And when we are at war, that is a terrible position for the intelligence community to be."

The tapes were created in 2002 and destroyed three years later. The reason cited was concerns that if they were leaked, the identities of the CIA interrogators would be compromised. They reportedly showed CIA officers interrogating Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda suspect linked to the Sept. 11 plot, using waterboarding, an interrogation technique that makes a prisoner believe he is in imminent danger of drowning.

In the Fox interview, Harman said she did not believe waterboarding worked.